Many social workers, massage therapists, and psychotherapists I’ve spoken with over the years—like acupuncturists—pursue the healing arts because we need healing ourselves. On February 3 of this year, my father died from cancer. He had been battling the disease since 2013 and was, in fact, diagnosed right around the time I signed the lease to open Long Beach Community Acupuncture.

He lived in Texas, and the distance compounded by invasive treatments from radiation and chemotherapy, to surgery and more chemo have been—to say the least—stressful for me. Living with a cancer diagnosis and treatment is a strange trip of intensity for caregivers and patients; it is a flux of emotions and physical symptoms with good and bad days. These past few years have been delineated by periods of shock and sadness, then those of waiting and hoping for optimal outcomes.

Working in this clinic daily has been a great source of healing for me as well as many others. We’ve given over 19,000 treatments to date. I am amazed at the sheer number of treatments and even more so at how much healing I’ve drawn from this environment. It was not something I expected.

Work that one enjoys is a salutary well. I have been soothed and comforted from treating people over and over; it comes in the form of the brief, casual conversations of our lives as I get the pins in and also in the successes we share in having symptoms improve if not resolve completely.

It was a conversation with a long-time patient that enabled me to take good leave of my father before he died and to appreciate how he had influenced my life choices in ways I could not recognize before. While another patient, who helps me clean the clinic sometimes, encouraged me to visit him multiple times in the final months of his life—not a simple choice as a business owner—but I did. Those last visits created some of my most cherished memories of him now. At the same time, our staff stepped in to cover for me, keeping the clinic open and accessible to patients while I was gone.

I wanted to share this at the time of our expansion of hours because our clinic staff and patients have been such an unbelievable source of support and these changes reflect the strength of LBCA. It is difficult to estimate the value of a good team but we have one and I am grateful to you all. There is strength in numbers and healing in community.